I wanted to go to Lidewij Edelkoort for years. I’m a fan because I think she’s visually one of the strongest (if not the strongest) one in the field and her work is more than just showing the latest trends, it’s very nigh to making art. She’s considered the Grand Dame of trendwatching and her forecasts are world renowned. But, for years I simply missed her. That is to say until I started with trendwatching myself. Because as soon as I started with the Trendacademy this inspiring world of trendwatchers and trend forecasters opened before me and in a matter of months I saw the biggest names in the Dutch business. And then I got the opportunity to see Li. Of course I wanted to see Li. So I went to Vanities, her latest presentation of SS16 which was preceded by a presentation of active wear. Personally I don’t have a thing for active wear, but according to Lidewij active wear is going to be BIG. We all want comfort in our mobile lives and this comfort wear is going to the next level. She illustrated this by highlighting the sneaker trend and showing that sneakers have now made their […]

For the Trendacademy we recently had to do a feel trip and record everything we thought was interesting and/ or exemplary for a particular trend. I chose to visit the Strawberry Earth Fair. We had to make a power point presentation and I thought it would be nice to share it here. The presentation highlights a couple of mini-trends and is just a visual overview of the festival. Here’s what I did: I identified a couple of mini-trends and named them, then I searched for images and I also made some photo’s myself. I gave the mini-trends names and embedded them in a larger story. This story is a bit to long to publish here, but you can get an idea just by looking at my slides. The festival says something about how and what we want to ‘experience’ during such an event and this of course is very interesting with regards to the future. * As of today I’m adding a Dutch translation of my posts for my Dutch readers / Vanaf vandaag zal ik ook een Nederlandse vertaling van mijn blogposts toevoegen voor mijn Nederlandse lezers. Voor de Trendacademy moesten we onlangs een feeltrip doen en daarbij alles […]

On my second day at DDW I went to the Strijp area and to Piet Hein Eek. I absolutely loved the industrial, rugged, hippy-3.0 feel of these area’s. They truly are places of inspiration and I thought it gave a good look into our potential future; the way we can use old buildings and create new purposes for them. There is really something futuristic about it, like walking around in some sci-fi landscape (the good one that is). Free places, where you can make beautiful murals on a wall or start a bbq outside. A place where creativity roams free without any confines. Next year I’m going to go here first and roam some more. This is my last post about the DDW. I have a lot of cool stuff coming up though! I’m doing two different styling shoots with products, there’s a book review and an interview with an inspiring lady that started a cool new initiative. I’ve decided to edit my ‘about’ page somewhat to highlight the direction this blog is heading. More on fair lifestyle, green choices and social design. And my blog will hopefully become a space where I can share my new found passion: trendwatching. […]

I have said it before, but I have trouble with having a strong opinion about something. Just because I think subjectivity is at the root of everything and the world is just a stage on which you perform a role. If you’re a dramatic person all you will see is emotion, if you’re very analytical all you will notice is the logic behind things. Things are not about things, they are about the people who see them (and beauty is in the eye of the beholder). Truth is not about truth, it’s personal. So all we do is organize things and come up with our own personal stories. The interesting part is the part where the stories meet, where there is some sort of common ground. Today at Trendacademy one of the teachers said trendwatching is all about organizing. The story comes when you connect the dots. And then still, it’s your personal story because you’re doing the organizing. I think that’s very intriguing. In my search for suitable images for this week’s assignment with the theme ‘ageing population‘ these photo’s by Karsten Thormaelen caught my eye. He photographed women and men that had reached the respectable age of 100. His […]

Meanwhile I’m very much looking forward to starting my degree in Trendwatching at Trendacademy. I have been interested in this field of study & business for a while now and thought it was high time to do something with it. I’m very curious to see where this path is going to lead me. {Ozan Mutlu Dursan photography}